NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS | November 20 , 2015 | PAGE 5
...Portland City Council: No new fossil fuel infrastructure
From Page 1
equality in our state by the city
taking a stand against the work-
ing class to earn a living in these
sectors.”
Myers was joined by Labor-
ers Local 737 President Dave
Tischer and IBEW Local 48 po-
litical director Joe Esmonde in
speaking against the resolutions.
“Basically what Portland is
doing is taking on the fight of
special interests,” Tischer said.
“I believe these resolutions are
bad for jobs, bad for business,
they’re bad policy, and they’re
bad for Portland.”
Esmonde lamented that the
City didn’t reach out to minority
communities, and challenged
climate change activists at the
hearing to have the same pas-
sion on income inequality. Es-
monde served on a City fossil
fuel export advisory committee,
which met twice.
“We were told we’d have in-
put into anything coming out of
that committee,” Esmonde told
City Council. “We’ve had
none.”
But other union leaders at the
Nov. 4 hearing spoke in favor
of the resolutions. Cager
Clabaugh, vice president of In-
ternational Longshore and
Warehouse Union Local 4 in
Vancouver, said his union voted
unanimously to oppose a new
oil terminal, in part for safety
concerns, and because a spill
could put other terminals out of
action.
“One of the first jobs I had as
a longshoreman was putting a
lumber mill on a ship in pieces
to send to the Philippines,”
Clabaugh said. “You can look
over the Lewis and Clark Bridge
to see all the timber we send out.
Let’s not make it easy to send
our natural resources overseas.
Let’s export finished products.”
And schoolteacher Ned Has-
call delivered a message from
Portland Association of Teach-
ers president Gwen Sullivan.
PAT’s Oct. 28 rep assembly
passed a unanimous resolution
in favor of stopping all new
large-scale fossil fuel projects in
Portland. “We support these res-
olutions on behalf of our chil-
dren and their future in our city
and in our world,” Sullivan said.
A regionwide controversy
The Portland resolutions are the
latest development in a region-
wide controversy. More than a
dozen large fossil fuel infra-
structure projects have been pro-
posed in the Pacific Northwest
in recent years, including the
proposed $500 million Pembina
propane export facility at the
Port of Portland and the pro-
WATCH IT ONLINE
See the whole Nov. 4 hearing at
http://bit.ly/1QKniFb. Testimony from
building trades union leaders starts at
3:55:00, from ILWU at 1:02:55, and
from PAT at 3:13:10.
posed Tesoro-Savage oil termi-
nal at the Port of Vancouver.
Mayor Hales at first wel-
comed the Pembina project,
which had an agreement to be
union built, only to later deliver
the killing blow.
The Tesoro Savage proposal
is still waiting for approval from
the State of Washington. If con-
structed, it would be the nation’s
largest oil-by-rail terminal — a
$100 million, 42-acre oil-han-
dling plant. It would enable up
to 15 million gallons a day of
crude oil to be transferred from
the Bakken fields of North
Dakota — by train through the
Columbia Gorge — to ships
bound for West Coast refineries.
The terminal has been a hot
political issue in Vancouver. On
Nov. 3, project opponent Eric
LaBrant won election to the Port
of Vancouver by 56 percent, in
a vote seen as a referendum on
the project. LaBrant testified in
favor of the Portland City Coun-
cil resolution at the Nov. 12
hearing.
“Coal, oil, and gas are actu-
ally distractions from the kinds
of jobs we need to bring into this
region,” Labrant said. That
echoed language in the second
resolution that sought to down-
play the jobs impact: “Eco-
nomic opportunities presented
by expanding fossil fuel infra-
structure are modest, with few
jobs and little value added when
compared to the related environ-
mental costs,” the city council
resolution declared.
In a nod to jobs concerns,
Commissioner Nick Fish was
able to add a requirement that
city staff will analyze the eco-
nomic impacts of any proposed
code changes, especially im-
pacts on local blue-collar jobs.
Fish also was able to add a non-
binding clause saying the City
will “explore opportunities to
invest in Portland’s ‘human in-
frastructure’ by supporting pro-
grams to retrain our workforce
as the city transitions to a clean
energy economy.”
In the end, the resolution op-
posing oil trains passed 4-0
(Commissioner Dan Saltzman
was absent), and the resolution
opposing fossil fuel infrastruc-
ture passed 5-0. And they’re un-
likely to be overturned: State
Treasurer Ted Wheeler, the lead-
ing candidate for mayor, said he
supports the resolutions.
Federal law limits cities’ abil-
ity to stop trains and interstate
pipelines, but they have broad
authority over local land use is-
sues. The Portland ordinance
wouldn’t limit seismic or other
improvements to existing fossil
fuel infrastructure, and it would-
n’t affect “end-user” infrastruc-
ture like gas stations or natural
gas hookups for new buildings.
But it would prevent proposals
like Pembina’s from gaining fu-
ture approval.
Keystone XL RIP
The Portland ordinance also
came at the same time a much
bigger fight played out nation-
ally over the Keystone XL
pipeline. The U.S. State Depart-
ment has spent seven years re-
viewing Trans Canada’s appli-
cation for permission to build
the pipeline, which would bring
oil from the western Alberta tar
sands to refineries along the
Gulf Coast. Between the pas-
sage of Portland’s first and sec-
ond ordinances, President
Obama finally took a side:
against. He concluded it would
not serve the national interest of
the United States, and rejected
the application.
All three Democratic presi-
dential candidates oppose Key-
stone, while all the Republican
candidates are for it.
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